Late Night Phone Call
by ComPow
Summary: It's the middle of the night and twenty three year old Marco wakes up to a call from someone he hasn't talked to for what feels like a while.


Marco stirs from his sleep when he hears the sound of his phone vibrating against the wooden drawer that sits next to his bed. He groans and looks at the alarm clock to see that it's three in the morning.

Who could be calling this late?

As the vibrating phone continues, he sits up, yawns, and picks up.

"Hello?"

"Marco?"

His eyes actually go wide when he hears the voice. "S-Star?"

"Yeah..."

"I uh... Hi, why are you calling me so late?"

Star is quiet at the other end of the line until he finally hear her sigh, "I just...needed to talk to someone and...I missed you."

"Oh," he whispers back with a small smile.

Truth be told, he misses her as well. It feels like they haven't spoken in a really long time, and he figures that it's probably because they've both been busy.

"I missed you too," he answers honestly.

Star hums in reply before asking, "Why are you whispering?"

"I'm in bed," he says while getting up and heading out of the room. "She's sleeping right now and I didn't want to wake her. But it's okay, I'm out of the room now so we can talk better."

"Okay..." Star trails off.

"What's up?" Marco asks as he finds a nearby chair to sit in.

"Nothing," she answers, "I just needed someone to talk to. You don't mind, do you? I know it's late and, you're right, _she's_ sleeping-"

"It's okay Star," he interrupts her with a sad smile before he chuckles, "You're talking to Doctor Marco PHD here."

She giggles at that and begins to tell him what's on her mind.

Marco listens patiently, finding her voice soothing after not hearing it for what felt like a long time. He's taken back to the times when the two of them would sit in her room talking in the middle of the night.

At one pint he almost dozes off until he hears a sudden seriousness to her voice.

"You ever wish we could go back?"

"Go back where?"

Star lets out a breath, sounding almost like a whimper. "I just miss being so...so _free_ before, you know? Back then I didn't have to worry about being Queen as much as I do now, plus I didn't have Mom breathing down my neck all the time and...we were always together..."

The last part sounded almost like a whisper but he's glad he managed to catch it. It seems that he's not the only one that thinks they haven't seen each other in a while. For some reason it makes him smile.

"To be honest," he begins. "I can see why you would think that way. We didn't have so many responsibilities back then, and it was pretty fun to go on adventures and fight monsters all the time."

Star laughs at that.

"But, even though things are a bit more difficult now doesn't mean that I would want to sacrifice everything to go back. There are things I wouldn't want to give up," Marco says and looks in the direction of his bedroom with a fond smile.

She's probably still sleeping – busy day after all – and he's not too surprised that all his talking hasn't woken her up. Unlike him, she's a pretty heavy sleeper.

"Well duh," Star answers in a playful voice, "I meant for like a day. This whole 'training to be Queen' thing is super stressful, but I don't want to talk about that right now."

"What do you want to talk about then?"

There's a pause before she speaks, "Remember that time you tried to rehabilitate a lobster monster?"

They share a laugh and fondly reminisce about their teenage years.

A long time seems to pass until Marco is distracted from the phone when his bedroom door creaks open.

"Daddy, who are you talking to?" A tiny girl with brown pigtails asks while rubbing her right eye,.

He can't help but smile as she sits on his lap and leans against his body before yawning.

"It's-"

"Oh my gosh Marco! Is that Aurora?! Put her on the phone!" Star demands, her earlier worries forgotten.

Aurora perks up at the sound of the voice and gladly takes the phone and puts it to her ear, "Mommy!"

Marco tries not to laugh. He can hear Star's voice pretty well even though she's not on speaker, but their daughter is just as energetic and answers with the same level of excitement.

He can't help but wonder if maybe they're all – including him – exaggerating a tiny bit. Star has only been gone for two days and comes back the day after tomorrow. Sure it feels like forever since they last talked – this morning – but maybe next time they shouldn't wake up their three year old daughter.

"Daddy!"

He's snapped out of his thoughts to see his daughter looking up at him with an excited smile, "Mommy wants to talk to you too."

"I'm listening," he says after putting the phone on speaker.

"Marco, I was going to tell Aurora about the time we beat up a bunch of monsters," Star says the last part in an obvious exaggerated tone that makes their daughter laugh.

So he listens as his wife tells their daughter – in the middle of the night – about one of the times they got into a fight with a couple of monsters.

Probably not something that your average family would do but as he hears the sound of Star's voice, and sees the smile on their daughter's face, he knows that he wouldn't have it any other way.


End file.
